Aussie businesses embrace wireless future
Aussie businesses embrace wireless future
Despite recent security fears over the use of new wireless devices in the work place, such as smart phones, wireless spending in enterprises is set to accelerate constantly until at least 2007.
The Meta Group has reported that there is a growing interest in mobile solutions throughout Australia. Analysts predict that half of enterprises will have wireless email in place within two or three years, which will spark a new wave of projects for wireless applications.
These would be designed as extensions to existing environments, such as route delivery, service, field sales, and asset management, rather than for the purpose of stand alone mobile infrastructures.
Jack Gold, wireless industry analyst at Meta Group said. "Despite the challenges of less than universal wide area wireless coverage, we have seen a renewed interest in deploying wireless applications during the past six months, as companies are beginning to spend again.
"The downside is that this is putting increased pressure on already burdened IT organisation to support users on various devices such as notebooks, tablet PCs, PDAs, and smart phones."
But many enterprises are worried about the security risks of these devices because they usually enter through the back door: employees buy them at retail stores andbring them to work, so they could be misused to extract confidential information.
These companies are also fearful of employees losing their phones or PDAs containing vital calendar information and notes that describe the background of different meetings, which could range from fixing internal problems to addressing customer issues - such as merger and acquisition discussions. This could cause problems if the information falls into the wrong hands.
But, according to the Meta Group, enterprises are even considering platform vendors such as IBM, SAP, Oracle and Microsoft to expedite the processes, so the security fears do not appear to be enough to slow down the progress.
Gold, however, has advised that companies should keep an eye on security risks too as Australian companies forge forward with their plans.
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